Posted
by
CmdrTaco
on Thursday August 07, 2008 @07:37AM
from the ironically-he's-an-atheist dept.

FleaPlus writes "Private orbital spaceflight company SpaceX recently announced that last weekend's Falcon 1 rocket launch failure was caused by a collision between the first and second stage of their rocket. This was due to a timing problem, when their brand-new engine design produced residual thrust for 1.5 seconds longer than expected; they're currently working to fix the problem and launch again, perhaps as early as next month. In a recent interview with Wired, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk remarked on their efforts: "Optimism, pessimism, f-ck that; we're going to make it happen. As God is my bloody witness, I'm hell-bent on making it work.""

On a side note, nothing says "We're a serious business venture" quite like a CEO who rants and uses phrases like "fuck that" in interviews. Perhaps the rocket stages aren't the only thing that can't hold back when it counts.

This isn't your average widget company. People don't invest in companies like SpaceX just because of the profit potential, they do it because they desperately and fervently want to see us get our bald monkey asses off this rock. Having a CEO that unabashedly shares this passion is heartening to investors like those. If anything, I expect this "outburst" will help SpaceX more than harm them.

People don't invest in companies like SpaceX just because of the profit potential, they do it because they desperately and fervently want to see us get our bald monkey asses off this rock. Having a CEO that unabashedly shares this passion is heartening to investors like those.

The problem being that the sets 'folks who share that passion' and 'folks who have significant money to invest' have essentially zero overlap. Serious investors invest to make a profit, not to scratch some philosophical itch. Those

The problem being that the sets 'folks who share that passion' and 'folks who have significant money to invest' have essentially zero overlap.

There's pretty much a whole class of dotcom-wealthy geeks in Silicon Valley who are a living contradiction to that statement. Let me tell you, for the most part, it's not movie stars who are plopping $100k down for Tesla Roadsters.

Investments as far out on the bell curve as SpaceX have always had a hard time finding capital.

SpaceX's third failure in a row just occurred and they just got a brand new influx of investment capital.

Some people are more interested in what you do than what you say, and would prefer to deal with someone that says what they mean. It's kind of like corporate social responsibility, it's a great feel good measure but when it comes down to it, it's a bad investment. Catering to

I don't even WANT to think about that. I mean, if it were true that God is Satan... all my worshiping, all of my praying, all of my sacrifice to the Dark Lord would be in vain! My last sacrifice was a whole sack of puppies! Did they die for no reason?

You don't expect any return on investment in a short/medium term...Or better you don't expect anykind of return at all.

You know it will waste large sum of money.

You are looking for fun.

What you need are fanatics investing all their energy in the project and leading the team. Like him. And then it could be a success IMHO. Cold blood/rationnal manager would have left this project already.

Its not that there's not the potential for big returns. Quite to the contrary, if they actually get the bugs ironed out and hit their price target, they're going to make an utter mint. The problem is the risk. The private rocketry landscape is littered with the graves of equally ambitious companies. What makes SpaceX interesting is how much capital they have behind them and how far along they are. They actually stand a chance of pulling it off, and I think that's what makes them so interesting. But it's still a very risky investment, because rocketry is a very tough business in comparison to other investments people might throw their money into.

While I agree that a certain amount of enthusiasm is necessary for a grand undertaking such as this, it is entirely too easy for a manager to be too enthusiastic, ignoring or minimizing serious issues for the sake of maintaining forward progress.

James R. Chiles, in his book Inviting Disaster spends an entire chapter ("Doubtless") on this. He shows time and again how overconfident managers willingly blinded themselves to serious flaws in their programs, and were then surprised when those same flaws came to

Actually, it sounds like a man who is altogether too comfortable with profanity and who cares little for the problems faced by his team. Would you like to work for such a man?

Hint: when he says "I'm hell-bent on making it work", he actually means "I will not be doing any of the actual work myself, but I'm hell-bent on pushing my workers". Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.

They are trying to shoot people into space for God's sake and that takes passion. This sometimes manifests itself in profanity.

Personally I like this attitude much more than the life-less suit who can't relate to the passionate. I prefer Larry Ellison's "I'm gonna kick the fucking door down and take that shit!" to Bill Gates "well, we better see if we can sneak in the back and steal everything". It's much more honest. Both have the same goal, but one isn't delusional about it.

They are trying to shoot people into space for God's sake and that takes passion. This sometimes manifests itself in profanity.

Personally I like this attitude much more than the life-less suit who can't relate to the passionate. I prefer Larry Ellison's "I'm gonna kick the fucking door down and take that shit!" to Bill Gates "well, we better see if we can sneak in the back and steal everything". It's much more honest. Both have the same goal, but one isn't delusional about it.

Hell, I'll even settle for Gates' "sneak in the back and steal everything". Even that would be honest.

But back to the matter at hand. I'll take a "Fuck that. We're going to make it work" in a press release any day, over the mealy-mouthed "We have faith that our current challenge can be overcome" corporatespeak that currently plagues press releases.

The second stage didn't encounter a challenge, it encountered the first stage, and then blew the fuck up. That's not a surmountable challenge, or even an issue, it's a fixable bug or solvable problem.

If people said what they meant, and meant what they said, there'd be a lot less failure in the business world.

Management needs someone who can do for businesspeak what Edward Tufte did for the visual presentation of information. It's not just the PowerPoint that kills astronauts, it's the use of phrases like "the stresses imposed by the frozen deposit upon the RCC were in excess of design parameters" as opposed to "Are you fucking nuts? We never tested for that shit, so none of us has any fucking clue how bad the damage is until someone gets the fuck out there and actually looks at it!" (Challenger), and "The performance of the O-ring under this thermal profile is not guaranteed, but is likely to be adequate" over "Well, I'd bet $50 that nobody dies this time, but I sure as fuck wouldn't want to be flying on it. If you really wanna get the teacher in space in time for the State of the Union speech, it's your call, boss. Don't fuckin' blame me if you kill 7 people." (Columbia).

Management needs someone who can do for businesspeak what Edward Tufte did for the visual presentation of information. It's not just the PowerPoint that kills astronauts, it's the use of phrases like "the stresses imposed by the frozen deposit upon the RCC were in excess of design parameters" as opposed to "Are you fucking nuts? We never tested for that shit, so none of us has any fucking clue how bad the damage is until someone gets the fuck out there and actually looks at it!" (Challenger), and "The performance of the O-ring under this thermal profile is not guaranteed, but is likely to be adequate" over "Well, I'd bet $50 that nobody dies this time, but I sure as fuck wouldn't want to be flying on it. If you really wanna get the teacher in space in time for the State of the Union speech, it's your call, boss. Don't fuckin' blame me if you kill 7 people." (Columbia).

General Patton would have disagreed. He understood the problems faced by his "team" and inspired them to overcome incredible odds. Sometimes a little profanity can be inspiring, if not used gratuitously.

>>Would you like to work for such a man?Yes, actually I would. Because that sort of man, and the people who work for him, are going to do great things! That's real passion, which is sadly lacking from most corporations. He's not just your average CEO coasting toward a golden parachute and a retirement

It isn't the way the world 'works' because what Musk has done does not 'work' at all. What works is collaboration, teamwork, respect for talent - and managers who respect that. The dot com bubble made men very rich very quickly, not allowing the time form them to reflect and mature, and these people are not nearly as smart as they think they are, nor as good leaders as you seem to think they are.

Wired.com: Your whole mantra is "cheaper and more reliable." But so far you're zero for three, which is anything but cheap and reliable, and guys like GlobalSecurity.org's John Pike say the reason it has taken billions of dollars and tens of thousands of people to successfully launch rockets is physics, not some new design or economic model.

Musk: Guys like John Pike have existed since the dawn of time, and if you listen to people like that then things wil

And I fully expect them to be a major player in the future of commercial space travel.

They've done some absolutely amazing things in the last couple of years on a budget that makes all the governments combined look pretty silly. They remind me of Reid Malenfant and his outfit (only a bit more realistic), and I don't think any issues that crop up during this test stage are going to slow them down for long.

Maybe the 21st century will see some serious space exploration after all, instead of all those 'feel good' missions. $/kg to orbit is the only significant number for the next two decades or so, once there is enough construction capability up there to start hauling stuff inbound it should get interesting indeed.

While I share your enthusiasm, maybe we should wait until they have at least one successful launch before holding them up as the template for success and the future of space flight. So far they're just a really, really expensive fireworks company.

In spaceflight you're on a very long trajectory (pun intended) where lots of stuff has to be tested, alone and in combination. The only way to be 100% sure that everything works is to do an all-or-nothing launch, which due to its very nature is a public event. Trouble is to be expected when you combine that large a number of components. ALL space programs have had their failures, there is absolutely no reason to expect commercial space flight to be an exception.

What you can expect is a slow decrease of these failures as more and more of the failure modes of the equipment are revealing themselves under different circumstances. This is even true for regular commercial aircraft today, and it is one of the major reasons for accident investigations.

SpaceX has just had a mishap that would have been hard to test for on the pad (I'm not knowledgeable enough in the field to comment on the exact differences between testing on the pad and a launch, but I suspect there are still numerous differences, caused by atmospheric pressure, the effects of acceleration etc). This failure, when dealt with is not going to cause another launch to go bad, the real question is how many more such issues are lurking under the grass. It would be nice to know if this failure would have been preventable, 1.5 seconds doesn't sound like much but during the critical period of separation it's like an eternity.

SpaceX has just had a mishap that would have been hard to test for on the pad (I'm not knowledgeable enough in the field to comment on the exact differences between testing on the pad and a launch, but I suspect there are still numerous differences, caused by atmospheric pressure, the effects of acceleration etc)

My understanding from the article is that the regeneratively cooled [wikipedia.org] version of the Merlin takes longer to shutdown than the ablatively cooled one, because there's a longer path for the fuel to follow after it leaves the tank. All rocket engines have a shutdown "tail" where the thrust drops off over time, so you can't presume that engine is no longer generating thrust instantly after you shut off the fuel flow. They didn't model the tail to be long enough because the pressure in the chamber during the unanti

SpaceX is building real hardware and "getting it up there". I would call that a bit better than a typical fireworks company.

Besides, the problem with this last launch was more of things bumping into each other when they shouldn't have. It is also a situation where they made several changes to their rocket and were testing them all out at the same time. While the $10 million or so that it costs for them to send up a Falcon 1 rocket is expensive enough to not want to do repeated testing, it does make it more complicated to call something like this an "operational flight" when not all components have been tested in actual flight conditions.

If they can get another rocket shipped to Kwajalein and launched in less than a month, that will speak far more about SpaceX's capabilities than can possibly be said about snarky remarks like being a fireworks company.

They are certainly a whole lot closer to bringing down the cost of rocketry than companies like Rocketplane Kistler who haven't even really launched any hardware or even tested it in things like wind tunnels or a launch stand.

All this said, SpaceX does need to deliver something to orbit real soon. It looks like the Malasyian government is getting quite nervous about being the next customer to send something up, given the track record for SpaceX to put things into orbit. They simply must get this next launch if they are to keep some of their customers.

To be blunt, a serious outfit would know how long their damn engine burns for.

The reason they've done everything on such a small budget is because they cut through the red tape that holds government agencies back. Unfortunately, some of that red tape was obviously important for quality control.

In any case, they aren't doing that well at reducing cost - Falcon 9 for instance is 5 million dollars per flight more expensive than Proton (albeit it with a slightly bigger capacity) and Proton has the longest and b

there is a reason why soviet tech is cheap, it's old and it's development has been paid for in the past (no comment on how it was paid for).

So, any new development will be 'more costly' at face than old tech, but over time those costs should come down significantly. What is more surprising is that the difference between the old tech and the new one is as small as it is.

My first multi-stage was a lawn dart (coincidentally, it failed to stage too, but I damn well knew how long the first stage would burn for. It said so on the engine packet...) my second one flew perfectly. Sure, Musks are bigger but he has a lot more money than me.

The launch market won't care for novelty though - 20 tonne satellites are Serious Business and people sending them up are likely to be quite cautious about embracing a potty-mouthed newcomer in favour of the old Russian stalwart. If nobody is buying his launcher how can he bring the price down?

If NASA had that attitude, we never would have had a decade of stagnation after the first Shuttle accident. We'd have a moon colony by now. The problem is that the people at top too often see these kind of events as a signal to stop, where it really should be a sign that they're almost there. Remember when the Delta rocket flew and then fell over and burst into flames because of failed landing gear? LANDING GEAR! Something trivial to engineer (compared to the rest), and the project is shelved because of that failure. They should have kept going.

Argh. Enough of my ranting, you people get the idea. I just wish the pointy haired bosses did.

If NASA had that attitude, we never would have had a decade of stagnation after the first Shuttle accident. We'd have a moon colony by now. The problem is that the people at top too often see these kind of events as a signal to stop, where it really should be a sign that they're almost there. Remember when the Delta rocket flew and then fell over and burst into flames because of failed landing gear? LANDING GEAR! Something trivial to engineer (compared to the rest), and the project is shelved because of that failure. They should have kept going.

Argh. Enough of my ranting, you people get the idea. I just wish the pointy haired bosses did.

if Musk et al. has an accident where someone dies, I bet the FAA and others will be introducing some delays in his schedule. And I'm sure they'll some public outcry that he's flying over people and putting them in jeopardy - whether or not it's true.

We've lost our sense of adventure, the acceptance of risk and, well, we've become a society that's so bent on being safe that we're afraid to take any warranted risks: we've become a society of pansies.

If NASA had that attitude, we never would have had a decade of stagnation after the first Shuttle accident

NASA made the error of designing the shuttle in a top-down manner, which is a clear design procedure mistake. According to their engineering estimates the shuttle has about 1:100 chance of failure per flight, which means a high-profile shuttle disaster every few decades or so. The public and politicians are not willing to put up with that and NASA has no options to fix this, given that redesigning the

If NASA had that attitude we'd probably have thousands of blown rocket husks laying about the island of Florida's thousand of craters.

Well, the government's first orbital rockets did tally up eight Vanguard husks [wikipedia.org] from eleven launches. I'm very glad we did have Elon Musk's attitude back then, because "never say die" appears to be a big part of how we got to the Moon in the next decade from such inauspicious beginnings. I hope we still have the same attitude now, because it's going to be necessary if we're

..too often see these kind of events as a signal to stop, where it really should be a sign that they're almost there.

If anything, it's a sign something went wrong. Though it's not actually a sign at all - it's a consequence.

But I share your enthusiasm. And really, we need to simply step back and ask what we're willing to sacrifice before replacing the engineering team, or killing the project. And sticking to those standards.

He needs to do some reading up on the reviews of NASA after the two shuttle disasters. In both cases overconfidence, and management overruling/ignoring the views of engineers were found to be major factors.

If he keeps running "hell-bent" towards his goal he's never going to reach it.

Swearing is never a problem and never indicates anything except that the person swears.

Being "hell-bent" doesn't mean that he is going to overrule or ignore the engineers. Heck, with that attitude it would make sense to listen to the engineers. Because they are the actual ones who are going to have to do the work.

So yeah, the only "attitude problem" I can see is the same that any CEO has, "my workers will do X". What army gave them the right to

The guy is smart, he listen to his engineers - in fact he refuses to elaborate on the problem until they are absolutely sure its what caused it. He might come off as someone a bit eager to get his product flying (and staying airborne), but comparing him to the fucktards that killed people in NASA launches where they where advised against it is just not right.

From the interview:Musk: Patience is a virtue, and I'm learning patience. It's a tough lesson.

Being "hell-bent" doesn't mean that he is going to overrule or ignore the engineers. Heck, with that attitude it would make sense to listen to the engineers. Because they are the actual ones who are going to have to do the work.

Well, NASA was "hell-bent" on getting a launch in on a cold day in January. That didn't turn out so well.

Nonsense, this is not a manned program. He needs to read up on early rocket development, like the launch history of the V2 which failed over and over again, as a reminder that this stuff is hard and error is part of the process.

Space flights have often lead to mid-air explosions, even with successful, well-known launchers.

Although i hope theses companies will succeed (for the progress of science), I wonder if it is really ready for commercial flights. The first flight which ends up with the death of a customer will scare away all potential customers and stop investment for 10 years...

>> The first flight which ends up with the death of a customer will scare away all potential customers and stop investment for 10 years... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_notable_accidents_and_incidents_on_commercial_aircraft

Good objection, but airlines are a little different from space travel for several reasons:
- First, even though there have been a lot of airlines accidents, the numbers are pretty low compared to the number of flights per day. Notice also that the first accident was on 1922, 8 years after the first commercial flight. I think that space travel has a much higher accident/flight ratio. (I admit i don't have numbers to prove it : Wikipedia says that about 4% of people who went to space died inflight, but that

Space travel does have a very high accident rate. It's not the early launches, either: the actual numbers are 18 deaths out of 430 people who have been to space (though many of those people have gone multiple times); 14 of those are accounted for by the two Space Shuttle disasters. The Shuttle in particular has a failure rate of 1.6%, 2 out of 123 launches.

But that's still not a reason to prevent commercial spaceflights. People do dangerous things all the time, and as long as they understand the risks,

Me either. I think perhaps the detached stage being right-up-in-your-business with the next stage may have interfered with it's thrust, but not being a rocket scientist I think I'm reaching far past my understandings.

Actually, that's basically what happened. The Kestrel engine on the second stage ignited, and the exhaust from it pushed the first stage away. The problem is that the second stage is designed to have the exhaust expanding into the vacuum of space, and having the first stage right there meant that the exhaust was contained within (or perhaps I should say, was redirected by) the interstage. Normally, the first stage and second stage are pneumatically pushed apart just before the second stage fires.

The exhaust was only in contact with the second stage for a very short period of time, but that was sufficient to "roast" the second stage enough to cause failure, either due to direct thermal effects or the forces created by the expanding exhaust (or to a combination of those factors).

By the way, the nozzle of the Kestrel engine is radiatively cooled. Before the sloshing doomed flight two, it was cool (figuratively only!) to see the bell glowing brightly. Some people watching with me thought it was failing until I explained that it's supposed to look like that.;)

Traditionally, no, they wouldn't be timed individually. That's kind of a silly thing if you asked me.

Typically you should wait until the first stage stop accelerating the rocket before dropping it. A sensor typically detects that condition and initiates seperation. To be safe, it may wait a beat or two before taking action to make sure the booster isn't just "chuffing". Or the sensor could have just been faulty, initiating seperation too soon.

If the booster begins accelerating again (as in blows up) or gives a last burst of unexpected glory, that's just bad design or manufacturing issue. If it's a solid-fuel booster, that could happen from time to time, but if the motor is liquid fueled it should just cut off fuel and be done with it.

Now, you could put the stages on their own timers, but there are risks. Usually the problem is a failed booster, and the timer on the upper stage fires with the rocket pointing the wrong way.

When engine cut-off occurs, valves close to shut off fuel from the pumps. However, there is still fuel left in the lines that finishes burning resulting in a little residual thrust. In their previous test flight, this finished within that 1.5 seconds. However, this launch used a new engine design.

The previous engine design was ablatively cooled. This means the engine nozzle is kept from melt

I think it shows the kind of incredible resolve it takes to do rocket science. I think it's the same resolve the Apollo program had, and I think it's infectious. It's one thing to be balls to the wall but have no demonstrative ability to execute, but remember that Flight 2 actually did make it up there. And that NASA and the US Government have enough confidence in their ability to give them major contracts.
For those invoking the Ahab thing, I just don't see that. 5-1 odds they nail it in Flight 4.